Reap What You Sew: Unions and Worker Resistance in the Bangladeshi Garment Industry
Workers in Bangladesh's garment sector have long fought for better conditions. But where has support for this come from? Unions are thought to be uplifting, but are they a dead weight for workers?
As this series has threaded through the history of the garment industry in Bangladesh, from long-awaited independence, through growth-fuelled ecstasies, and down to the devastating nadir of the Rana Plaza disaster, a conflict has repeatedly made itself felt. This tension is found in the often painful collision between workers, and the factory owners and fashion houses that employ them. Time and again, the state has been content to sit on the side of business in this taut conflict, lending its weight to stymie the rights of workers.
Thus far absent from this account of the battle between labour and capital is the role of the workers themselves, and the organisations that supposedly exist to safeguard them: unions. Often romanticised by leftists as a panacea against the strength of corporations and the state, the role of unions in Bangladesh is ambivalent. Yet despite the limitations of formal institutions, the power of workers has made itself evident, and their brave resistance to the poor conditions they face suggest that change is possible.
Simply, formal unionisation is not always a silver bullet to the oppressive and dangerous conditions of work in the global South. In Bangladesh’s garment sector (BGS), unionisation rates remain very low, with membership languishing in the single digits (Ashraf 2019).
Historically since the nation’s independence, large, institutionalised organisations have dominated the political landscape of the workplace and the factory floor. Unlike in Britain where - rightly or wrongly - we have an idea of unions as generally belligerent, or disruptive, as typified by the Conservative Party’s demonisation of striking NHS staff on one hand, and Mick Lynch-mania on the other, these large bodies are fairly placid.
In the decades between partition and independence, the cotton and jute mills of East Pakistan had strong leftist trade unions, but they were dismantled by a series of authoritarian regimes. A range of important reforms occurred during the military reigns of Ziaur Rahman, and then General Ershad; unions were to be leashed to political parties. This fractured the labour movement, and corrupt unions that positioned themselves close to the ruling party emerged, and spread. This decline of an organised labour movement was exacerbated by the juntas’ pursuit of foreign investment through privatisation, which empowered corporations to clamp down on pesky unions, rendering them largely toothless.
Amidst this period of authoritarianism, Bangladeshi leftist parties became increasingly impotent, tumbling into the abyss of electoral irrelevancy; without their presence, unions became ever more placid and failed to make their mark, particularly in the rapidly growing garment industry. In this context, as unions and labour institutions became more aligned with the state - and thus with business-owners as privatisation continued - it is little surprise that unions became increasingly synonymous with corruption and ineffectualness to the Bangladeshi public.
The leading example of this is the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Exporters Association (BGMEA). As arguably the most important institution - but not a union - in the country’s textile industry, the BGMEA has long been reliant on political patronage and state support. The organisation is embedded within Bangladeshi politics: some 10% of the country’s Members of Parliament are BGMEA leaders. The political clout of institutionalised labour organisations makes them powerful agents of potential change, but in practice they have become equally powerful advocates of stasis, laden with the inertia of bureaucracy.
It is somewhat unsurprising, therefore, that these large organisations are perceived by workers to be corrupt, illegitimate, and out of touch with the working population’s needs and desires. This public distrust is even less surprising when you consider that, as of 2020, Bangladesh ranked 4th worst in the world for labour rights.
The source of this general dissatisfaction has been attributed by some scholars to the perception that these large, slow-moving organisations work in concert with international fashion houses and the state. Rather than acting as ‘opposition’ to capital (i.e., the corporations, factory-owners, and international players that oversee the garment industry), institutions like the BGMEA tend to pursue technical fixes that don’t interfere with the corporate status quo, rather than potentially disruptive political ones.
Rendering the industry’s problems as technical starves political debate of oxygen. Rather than consider the lack of worker representation, or kerbing the deregulated conditions of the industry, or limiting the influence of foreign multinationals, a focus on the technical only provides solutions within the existing structural conditions of the industry. Of course, as in the case of the post-Rana Plaza ‘Accord’, these technical fixes can improve working conditions. However, the successes of better building inspections and other technical fixes neglect to address structural flaws of the garment industry, such as the extreme working hours, the chronic health impacts, or the invariably low pay.
The lukewarm activity of the BGMEA and its affiliated, ‘collaborationist’ unions unsettles the traditional leftist faith in these bodies; the mere existence of organised labour movements is insufficient, and this paucity of action is shown to be strongest felt by the most vulnerable. In the emphatic, unequivocal words of researcher Zia Rahman: “soft, non-confrontational approaches are totally ineffective in Bangladesh.”
The conciliatory behaviour of these large, institutionalised unions is at odds with the more radical demands of workers, and is cast into sharp relief by the existence of lively, militant labour organisation in the Bangladeshi garment industry. In May 2006, a small protest was met with police brutality, which triggered a chaotic rally that numbered in the thousands. With more militant unions at the helm, this impromptu outcry of frustration against the garment industry led to the vandalising of 50 factories, and the burning of a further 17.
The BGMEA initially bridled at this outburst, slandering the workers as disruptive and accusing them of stoking civil unrest. However, continued protests so discomforted the BGMEA that it rushed to the negotiating table. By the end of June, the unions’ demands had been met. Instant improvements in wages and maternity rights followed, and unions gained a stronger foothold in the garment industry.
Whatever one’s thoughts on the chaotic destruction of private property that seemed to trigger the meeting of these demands, it is clear that even fairly dis-organised labour can wield enormous power within the garment industry. It is not necessarily the presence of strong and respected unions, but rather the combined power of workers themselves, that was able to unbalance the political calculus in favour of better conditions. Nonetheless, progress has been slow. Even though the minimum wage for garment workers increased some 75% after the protests, the state was reluctant to enforce the changes, and employers continue to shirk their responsibilities.
Spooked by the lawlessness of 2006, the state’s increasingly militarised crackdown against these forms of unionisation shows that workers’ rights continue to be violated. As recently as last November, protesting garment workers were met with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pre-emptive arrests of union leaders. And it is not just the state that has partaken in coercive and violent methods of labour suppression. In 2017, 1,600 garment workers were dismissed for going on strike, showing the willingness of employers to enforce discipline upon their workers.
It is this violent capacity of the state to repress worker rights, and the ability of employers to get away with unjustly suspending its workers, that allow such poor working conditions to persist. In this context, it would seem incumbent on the state – who have demonstrably, time and again, chosen the side of capital over the side of labour – to improve the rights of workers.
But, whilst the state is certainly crucial to improving worker rights and cannot be absolved of its direct activity (not just complicity) in the repression of workers’ rights, I would caveat this by suggesting that even if the state wanted to, it is held hostage by the global fashion industry. In a deregulated, global market where companies sniff out the cheapest costs (i.e., lowest wages, and worst conditions) available, the Bangladeshi state stands to lose up to 13% of national GDP if it enforces a tighter regulatory atmosphere.
To some degree therefore, the state must sacrifice the needs of its workers somewhat in order to keep the BGS an attractive destination for much-needed investment and employment. And in turn, It is only the belief that the public has a degree of control over the state - through democratic means - that encourages us to hold it to account, and demand it improves the conditions for workers.
The situation is not entirely bleak. Whilst in Bangladesh, institutional organisations fail to use their power to drastically improve conditions in the garment sector, the continued insistence of workers to organise and stand up for themselves offers a glimpse of hope for change. Whether in the chaos of unplanned protests borne out of frustration and injustice, or organised strikes planned by small, worker-led unions, there is proof that workers aren’t so powerless after all.
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